GUANTANAMO  , the easternmost important

town of the S. coast of Cuba, in the province of Santiago, about 40 M . E. of Santiago . Pop . (1907) 14,559 . It is situated by the Guazo (or Guaso) river, on a little open plain between the mountains . The beautiful, land-locked harbour, Io m. long from N. to S. and 4 M. wide in places, has an outer and an inner basin . The latter has a very narrow entrance, and 2 to 2.5 fathoms depth of water . From the port of Caimanera to the city of Guantanamo, 13 m . N., there is a railway, and the city has railway connexion with Santiago . Guantanamo is one of the two ports leased by Cuba to the United States for a naval station . It is the shipping-port,and centre of a surrounding coffee-, sugar- and lime-growing district . In 1741 an English force under Admiral Edward Vernon and General Thomas Wentworth landed here to attack Santiago .

They named the harbour

Cumberland bay . After their retreat fortifications were begun . The history of the region practically dates, how-ever, from the end of the 18th century, when it gained prosperity from the settlement of French refugees from Santo Domingo; the town, as such, dates only from 1822 . Almost all the old families are of French descent, and French was the language locally most used as late as the last third of the 19th century . In recent years, especially since the Spanish-American War of 1898, the region has greatly changed socially and economically . Guantanamo was once a fashionable summer residence resort for wealthy Cubans .